House of Flying Daggers

[grand theft sparrow]

I liked it more than Hero, that's for sure.

It wasn't perfect and the ending is kind of a "what the fuck did I just see?" kind of thing.  But it certainly was pretty, despite missing Christopher Doyle as DP, but Zhao Xiaoding is no slouch by any means.  And that sound design was just as orgasmic as the visuals, particularly in the echo game scene.

Onto the bad stuff... concerning evaderhead's spoiler that he mentioned a few posts up, the audience I was in only laughed the first time.

It bugged me that Zhang Ziyi's character was blind for the first half of the movie.  One of her greatest attributes is her eyes.  The fact that she couldn't really use them was so frustrating to me that I was happy when it was revealed that she really could see.

The other thing that bothered me about the film was that I can't really tell if it was a misogynist film posing as a pro-feminist film or a film that is trying to be pro-feminist by depicting all the males as deplorable bastards. ZZ is almost raped three times in the film, deceived and almost killed, all by men.  I still can't really figure that one out.  But its vague standpoint on gender issues left a bad taste in my mouth, as it was clearly an important part of the film.  

At the end of the film, I was reminded of what a friend of mine had said about the Wachowski brothers after being disappointed with Matrix Revolutions.  He said that the Wachowskis know how to orchestrate individual action sequences but as for a full cohesive story... not so much.  I think that that sentiment can be applied to Zhang Yimou, as far as HOFD and Hero are concerned.

But it certainly was pretty.

[Myxo]

At the end of the film, I was reminded of what a friend of mine had said about the Wachowski brothers after being disappointed with Matrix Revolutions.  He said that the Wachowskis know how to orchestrate individual action sequences but as for a full cohesive story.

Personally I believe the problem with Reloaded & Revolutions has something to do with the amount of praise they received after completing the original Matrix. Imagine if they had been given the funding to just "barely" make both of the sequels like the original was made. Both of them would have kicked so much ass. But instead the funding wasn't allowed until the orginal was overwhelmingly popular. I believe they made something so popular that when it came time to complete their trilogy they didn't feel as motivated to make them everything they could have been. Why take any unecessary risks?

[pete]

I don't think even the actions were that well-orchestrated though.  especially everything that came after the bamboo fight.  the first few fights were okay but were all tedious and sloppy.  the best fight was the short rescue scene, I think that was because it was almost done entirely by a stunt double.

At the end of the film, I was reminded of what a friend of mine had said about the Wachowski brothers after being disappointed with Matrix Revolutions.  He said that the Wachowskis know how to orchestrate individual action sequences but as for a full cohesive story... not so much.  I think that that sentiment can be applied to Zhang Yimou, as far as HOFD and Hero are concerned.

But it certainly was pretty.

[cine]

Well I agree with hacksparrow as I, too, enjoyed this more than Hero. Not quite sure what all the fuss was about with this movie.. I was gonna say pete's just a snob about this stuff, but GB and Weak were bored by it too. Weird, because I was into it from beginning to end.

Oh and one of the final shots reminded me of McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Haha.. that's all I could think about for a good 3-5 minutes there.

[Myxo]

Finally saw this movie tonight on my week long tirade of Oscar buzz films. Gotta say that I loved it. Had no idea that I was walking into a love story and a tragedy.

Good stuff..

[life_boy]

okay.  so that sucked.
the first half of the movie was awesome, then came the supposedly spectacular bamboo forest fight with CGI so abundant and so hoaky it made Zatoichi's CG looked like I dunno, Eternal Sunshine of Jurassic Park.  and everything went down to shits with it.
I kinda saw it coming, all my friends told me, but I didn't believe them.  The first half of the movie was awesome, what the hell were my friends/ critics/ random strangers online talking about?  this is beautiful and the fight scenes are cool!  this is much more fun than Hero.  oh oops look at that hoaky little makeout scene.  that's okay hahaha.  oh what about that weird cgi arrow--hey blemishes make art right hahaha.  I began praying to Zhang Yimou.  Hey man, remember me?  We met in Boston in May, I was your translator for a wicked short period of time, remember me?  It's Pete.  Don't be a prick Zhang.  C'mon.  This is nice, don't get beautiful on me, please?  Zhang, hey, what the fuck is this?  digital dildo-sized green bamboos?
then the plot begins twisting itself.  this is some pretzel-yoga shit.  if you think this angry review is corny, watch the movie when it comes out in your trailer park and apologize to me in advance.

so yeah, zhang is pretty much a master (To Live in '94)-turned hack.  The world should've long suspected that he's been doing nothing but taking shit, but we were ignorant.  we held our breath and pretended it's chocolate fudge, simply because he always sprinkled his shit with big "exotic arthouse" production fucking values.  and look, he's made one dud saved by Christopher Doyle and Jet Li, and second dud saved by his reputation (that people will go see house of flying dirk digglers because of all the lame-ass foreign press critics who got assfucked by the digital bamboos and because everyone in the world thought Quentin Tarantino made Hero.  meanwhile, great martial arts gems like Ong Bak and Twilight Samurai make their symbolic arthouse circuit stops for a week in some of the bigger cities, and exist primarily in internet chatrooms (here in America that is).

man, fuck this Zhang Yimou guy.

Pete's surprisingly funny rant ("House of the Flying Dirk Digglers"...brilliance!) really sums up my problems with the film.  It started out so promising too.  I thought it felt kind of like an "arthouse blockbuster", a film that is devoid of a whole lot of story, features cardboard characters, and has a crazy plot-twist(s) that make you rethink everything you've seen...but a couple of great action sequences and some really nice cinematography (instead of a lot of special effects).  It was really disappointing to see such beautiful images detatched from any emotion.  

In the end it was a really beautiful, yet unfortunately empty film.

[pete]

okay, this is the third time I got a "surprisingly funny", shouldn't it stop being surprising?

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

okay, this is the third time I got a "surprisingly funny", shouldn't it stop being surprising?

It's more that it's you that's funny, and that's surprisng.

[life_boy]

okay, this is the third time I got a "surprisingly funny", shouldn't it stop being surprising?

No offense or anything...I just wasn't expecting a review of The House of Flying Daggers to be funny at all.  Your's was.  I won't act surprised the next time I read it, if it makes ya feel any better.

[pete]

okay, this is the third time I got a "surprisingly funny", shouldn't it stop being surprising?

It's more that it's you that's funny, and that's surprisng.

aww you little pokemon child manchild.  you are to young to get into this owning stuff, let the big boys handle it.

[MacGuffin]

Columbia TriStar's House of Flying Daggers is due on 4/19. Look for audio commentary with Ziyi Zhang and Zhang Yimou, a "making of" featurette, a visual effects featurette, storyboard comparisons and a music video (SLP $28.95).

[pete]

happy times sucked.

[03]

helo flagpolespecial; i really like your avatar (:

[meatball]

Yimou has a big bag of tricks, but this was pretty boring and pretty typical. The tragedy, the romance, the action. Blah.

flagpole, I like your avatar but I hate that polaroid inside of it.

[Ravi]

Saw this a few days ago and I concur with the criticisms of the film.  I just did not care about the story, which was thin to begin with.  It was filled with silly stuff but it didn't make me suspend my disbelief enough to accept it.  The fight scenes weren't choreographed incredibly well or anything either.